The Tasting Panel magazine

August 2017

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Delicato carries a wide-ranging portfolio of national brands,
shipping more than nine million cases in 2016. The original
Sam Jasper
Winery opened
by Gaspare
Indelicato and
Sebastiano
Luppino in
Manteca, CA.
PHOTOS
PROVIDED
COURTESY
OF
DELICATO
50 / the tasting panel / august 2017
BRAND PROFILE
G
aspare Indelicato, grandfather of
Delicato CEO Chris Indelicato,
emigrated from Italy to the U.S. at
the age of 16 in 1924. It was Prohibition,
but the climate and terroir of Manteca,
CA, reminded him of Sicily, where his
family had grown grapes for genera-
tions, so he purchased a dairy property
and planted his first vineyard. He met
Sebastiano Luppino while pruning
grapes, and they started the Sam Jasper
Winery in Manteca (named after their
two nicknames). Gaspare's instincts and
timing were perfect, and in 1934 they
released their first official vintage.
In the 1960s, Gaspare and his sons
began making wine for California's big-
gest brands and became one of the
state's largest bulk wine producers. In
the '70s, family members joined in to help
manage the growth, including Chris, who
was 11 at the time. In 1988, the family
purchased vineyard land in the San
Bernabe region of Monterey. "My family
recognized the potential of the Central
Coast ahead of most of our industry col-
leagues," notes Cheryl Indelicato, Family
Ambassador and San Bernabe Vineyard
Hospitality Director.
The big change came in 2000, when
Delicato Family Vineyards started its
own portfolio of wine brands. "This
was the turning point for us, when we
became a branded wine company," Chris
Indelicato explains. "The next step was
in 2002, when we started to move away
from brokers to manage our wholesaler
relationships and hired an amazing sales
team to grow our business."
And grow it did. Bota Box, a portable
and eco-friendly three-liter bag-in-box,
was born in 2003 and now sells more
than five million cases per year. In 2004,
the same year Chris assumed the role
of President and CEO, the company
launched Gnarly Head, inspired by Lodi's
ancient, gnarled Zinfandel vines, which
quickly became the top-selling Zinfandel
in the U.S. Continuing the innovation
trend, two years later Delicato launched
"337"—named for a lot of clone "337"
Cabernet, which paved the way for the
Noble Vines Collection of wines. Black
Stallion Estate, Diora, Z. Alexander
Brown—the top new wine brand of
2016, according to Nielsen—and the V2
Wine
Group portfolio were some of the
wines that Delicato continued to acquire
and build in the following years. In
addition, Delicato acquired the Blossom
Hill Winery from Treasury Wine Estates;
located in the Paicines AVA, it provides
Delicato with an additional four million
cases of growth capacity.
Gaspare would have been proud.
Nearly a century after his arrival, Delicato
Family Vineyards has become a top-ten
wine company, shipping more than
nine million cases last year, and is well
positioned to hit ten million in 2017.
Third-generation family members Chris
and his brother Jay, along with their uncle
Vince and cousins Frank, Cheryl, Mike
and Marie, are carrying on Gaspare's
legacy and are beginning to pass along the
same aspirations to the fourth generation.
Fittingly, in 2018, the company plans to
break ground on the Sam Jasper Winery
in Napa, in honor of the original winery
where it all began, with a first vintage
of 2024 in celebration of the company's
centennial anniversary.
Delicato Founder Gaspare
Indelicato with his sons
Anthony and Vince.
Decades of Indelicatos
THE STORY BEHIND
CALIFORNIA'S
FASTEST-GROWING
WINE COMPANY
by Izzy Watson